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Gift Planning Services Manager’s Minute

September 2018

We hope the summer has treated you and yours well!

The Church’s four institutions of higher education have enjoyed a rich history of generosity shown through planned giving. Hundreds have blessed the schools through their generosity. Starting in 2000, Philanthropies organized legacy societies to recognize and thank these donors.

Anyone who remembers one of the institutions in their estates qualifies for membership. This could be through a will, trust, retirement account, insurance policy, or payable-on-death account. There are no associated costs with membership, nor is there a minimum gift amount required. Documentation, while very helpful in meeting the donor’s philanthropic desires, is not necessary.

Members receive period correspondences (such as the institution’s respective President’s Report) and are invited to an annual gathering with the institutional president. These are always wonderful times to visit and associate with others who love and support the school.

If you know anyone – such as a client, family member or colleague – who has named one of the institutions in their planning, please let them know about the legacy societies. We would love to involve them, if they wish. This also applies to you if you have provisioned a Church school in your estate; we have several Gift Planning Council members who have done so.

Discover BYU-Pathway Worldwide Fundraising Priorities

The newest member of the Church Education System family is BYU-Pathway Worldwide. BYU–Pathway Worldwide offers PathwayConnect, a low-cost, flexible way to start on a path to a university degree, as well as university certificates and degrees. To learn more about this exciting new educational opportunity, bringing low-cost, quality higher education options to a worldwide audience, and how donors can further this great work, visit the BYU-Pathway Worldwide page at LDSP.org!

Endowed Scholarships and Mentorships at Church Schools

Many of your clients may appreciate the satisfaction that comes from creating an endowed scholarship and/or mentorship at one of the Church institutions of higher education to bless the lives of students and to recognize themselves or someone else they would like to honor. Endowed scholarships and mentorships provide continuing awards from available earnings. Awards are made beginning with the academic year following the first full calendar year that the endowment has been fully funded at the minimum amount. An endowment may be fully funded by an initial gift or by a series of gifts over a period of up to five years. Endowments may also be completely or primarily funded from an estate, trust, or beneficiary designation.

The minimum endowment amount at each of the institutions is subject to change in order to keep pace with tuition increases. The current minimum amounts needed to create endowed funds are as follows: BYU–$60,000; BYU–Hawaii–$50,000; BYU–Idaho–$45,000; LDS Business College–$20,000. Guidelines for endowed funds in excess of the required minimum (to provide earnings sufficient to pay the cost of a half-tuition scholarship or more based on 2018-2019 tuition amounts and the percent of principal each institution makes available for awards) at these institutions are as follows:

Some donors may wish to restrict the award of scholarships to certain qualified students. Gifts may be restricted according to the following criteria:

Financial need–may give preference to students with financial need (BYU-I treats as grant-in-aid)

GPA–may specify a minimum GPA (e.g., 3.0 on 4.0 scale; however, BYU-I does not permit)

Major–may specify a major, program, department, school, or college

Status–may be for graduate students, undergraduate students, or both

Geographic area–may restrict (with university approval) to students from a given geographic area (BYU-I does not permit this restriction except for graduates from certain high schools)

Other restrictions may be included (with university approval), however, fewer restrictions enable the university to administer the scholarship with greater flexibility to meet changing public and university policies. Gifts may not be restricted based on a student’s gender, age, disability, race, color, ethnicity, or national origin.

Spotlight on Stan Leavitt

Having worked in the financial services industry since 1989, with a developed expertise in wealth planning strategies, Stan Leavitt knows a thing or two about the benefits of giving. Throughout his career and as a member of Philanthropies’ Gift Planning Council, Stan says, “I’ve seen the tremendous benefits of charitable giving and strongly believe we receive more when we give more.”

As a Private Wealth Advisor who has worked with some of the country’s largest financial services companies, Stan attributes one of his personal philosophies on charitable giving to a specific experience in his life. While attending a professional conference early in his career, the discussion revolved around the benefits of leaving ten percent of one’s estate to charity. As an active member of the Church, Stan had experienced the temporal and spiritual blessings from paying tithing. So, when he heard the discussion of leaving ten percent of one’s estate to charity in a secular gift planning conference, he adopted it as a defining philosophy of his financial and estate planning work. (Read more)

PG Calc Webinar Invitation

Philanthropies broadcasts monthly webinars from PG Calc. These webinars may qualify for continuing education credit. We extend the invitations for any interested GPC members to join us. We hold these at 11:00 a.m. and are often followed by a Q&A session with members of the Gift Planning Services team. We are located at 1450 N. University Avenue in Provo. Here are the upcoming webinars (as well as the entire 2018 schedule):